Pas De Deux
by Anesther
Summary: Create one change. It's perfect. [Duchess and Sparrow]


**AN: I'm in another fandom... oops.**

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_**Pas De Deux**_

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_Entrée_

Moonlight bathes greenery, turning the forest into sad, sad silver. It wilts.

They enter together, their movements swift, in harmony, despite protesting the contrary. Their words sting, echoing around them—bitter, angry, and resentful; yet they're in sync.

They reach for each other, waiting for the inevitable fall.

_Adagio_

Born a descendent of swans, Duchess is well aware of the tragedy of the creatures—yearning for love, swan songs haunting murky waters and dark forests. The death of a swan is often mourned, for another delicate, beautiful being has been slaughtered too soon.

Duchess finds beauty, grace and wonder in her fairytale. She loves the elegance, the subtle strength, the balance.

It's not fair that the outcome is so barbarically ironic.

Duchess often is alone. Attachments add no meaning to her life if she will only lose it.

The other Royals tolerate her at best, and that's fine. Even her infatuation with their future king matters little.

In her single state, she did not expect to find a partner.

It was slow, albeit she remembers it as a rush.

He was loud, singing at the top of his lungs, a bird crying from a cage.

At first, she believed him Royal. For the legend of Robin Hood was long upheld as necessary, as all other tales were, and his story is one of adventure—nothing sad about it at all; but his songs spoke of deeper desires, a want to break out of the mold and make a name of his own.

He sings of rebellion, of freedom, of no attachments.

He was the last person in their realm she would look at.

But they joined.

()

He became her exception; and she his.

()

She dances to his music.

Sparrow provides a concrete, virtual bar that Duchess had never felt before. She danced so long alone that it was a marvel how different it felt to have support: she spins, he holds her steady; she leaps, he catches; she does the impossible at his side, and he _doesn't_ mind.

Their friendship is unexpectedly warm.

He's become a net, and her wings are trapped.

Thus, she tells him what she wants to dance to.

It was easier to think that she was using him. Companions were meaningless in the end.

Yet, still, Sparrow didn't care. He flew where she flew.

Their songs were very similar.

She cut the tune off one day. Her desire for happiness overtook all sense, any decency left to her nature. Her hostility grew into a monstrosity, her beauty lost in desperation, their melodies dissipating to screeches—forceful, enraged and broken. Even ravens fled.

Nothing is sadder than birds that lost flight.

()

They understood too well how it feels to be denied what they want.

_Variation_

He watches the way shadows swallow his father, taking to flight, faster than winds, and he wants to spread his own wings. But Sparrow looks in other directions as he soars in never-ending blue, flapping wildly towards the dipping horizon, until he's at the edge of the earth, away from it all and he lets out triumphant screams.

He is a master at swindling, kleptomania taught at birth. Cunning, deadly, resourceful—as the descendants of a king among thieves should be; but he only wants to sing, play music till he goes numb from the barrage of notes, till his fingers bleed, his throat is raw, and he is finally heard.

He is a free spirit, and destiny does not own his soul.

To live his life wandering the world, but not _living _in the world, expressing himself, was never what he wanted. He is passionate, bold, in love with the music he can create and share. To perform in front of thousands, to let himself be known the best way he knows how will please him more than thousands of stolen kingdoms, enrich him in a way glory can never live up to.

It's who he is, yet fate has him in chains. He is imprisoned, drowning. The wings are useless.

So are his songs, and that's what frightens him more than drowning.

_Femme Variation_

She watched her mother die beautifully—as swans do.

She's moved along by herself since. She ignored the loneliness of her childhood, dancing till she felt sick, till her feet were sore, bruised, bleeding at the nail beds. She knew of her eventual descent into flames, where her wings will burn as she fights to fall in love and _keep _that love. It didn't matter who it was—she simply wanted what she felt was hers all along.

Duchess was young when her mother sang her last breath, but she was told every day beforehand, that her prince would be a kindred spirit. No dancer could be complete if misunderstood by their partner.

She could not understand how that could be so, not when she was so entrancing, so difficult to keep up with. Who could be her equal?

She was born to play her role, one that she does not hate in the slightest, despite her doubts. She is reserved, aloof, and in love with the idea of eternal love; until she spreads her wings and dances, pirouetting in constant spurts, stretching taut limbs until there was only the feel of sinewy muscle and the sun on her skin, illustrating the awe of her kind. She only wants adoration, to be viewed as essential, appreciated.

There is no audience.

And she dances alone.

No one can match her.

Worse than falling in love and losing it, would be to not love at all.

_Coda_

The night covers the earth many times before she takes her final flight. She lands in a lake, having left her child in the care of those who understood her role. She could not bear to be near her child any further, the same way her lover took her heart and each pounding beat was one step closer to oblivion.

She was wrong.

She can't love. It hurts too much, and the pain is what she always feared—heartbreak is horrifying.

Death brought her kind relief.

The moonlight is bright, the forest is silver and it's as depressing to view as she feels.

There's music.

It's her prince.

He's always in sync with her: they grimace, they shout, they succumb to weary bones. They are similar, after all.

He is an outlaw, but not in the way his story went. He is hunted by his own band of merry men. He went against the story, as many had. He is still one of the few who remain from capture and punishment. He proudly raises his voice, straight to the skies, and nothing tethers him to the earth.

She smiles at him. He got what he wanted.

He sits at the water's edge, watching her float, dark and light plumage strewn haphazardly. She changed. She is sinking yet he can't remember her looking more at peace.

He twirls a white feather in callused fingers, nonchalant, contemplative.

"I've always loved you, you know,"

His croon is soft as death, poignant as song, intimate as dance, eternal.

"I know."

He sings a sweet ballad. She performs on the water, a true image of fair beauty denied. He doesn't come near, and pours his heart, glowing and alive in her hands, out into words.

He cannot steal what he gave willingly.

This is her grand pas de deux.

She never loved him.

There is no pain.

It's the end.

()

She is happy.


End file.
